i cant seem to locate the new thread button in the official sack attack q and a
is this because i am insane or is the that section not finished yet
The Game Design Committee believes it’s best for you to spend a while reading the manual and understanding the game before posting questions. The official Q&A will open soon.
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the question was about specific rulings on pinning people against the trough
it can go either way and it doesnt matter
“In regards to blocking someones movement and restraining them to a 2 foot by 2 foot area what if you ram a robot into a trough but it is to tall to go under
technically it is there fault that they can’t go underneath but does that still count as restraining movement.”
this is what karthik will say
“i cant give a blanket rule on that”
The wording of the rule is:
“<SG3> A Robot cannot Pin or Trap an opposing Robot for more than five seconds during the Driver Controlled Period. A Pin or Trap is officially over once the Pinning team has moved away from the teams are separated by 2 feet (approximately one (1) foam tile). After ending a Pin or Trap, a team may not Pin or Trap the same Robot again for a duration of 5 seconds. If a referee determines this rule to be violated, the offending Robot will be Disqualified for the match. There is no penalty for Pinning during the Autonomous Period.”
Pinning is defined as:
“Pinning – A Robot is considered to be Pinning an opposing Robot if it is inhibiting the movement of an opponent Robot while the opposing Robot is in contact with the foam playing surface and another Field Element.”
So, if you impeded the movement of a Robot (Pinning) by forcing them against the trough, you would have to follow the same rules as anyone else involving the scenarios described in <SG3>.
Does that answer your question?
That’s definitely pinning. The rule is pretty unambiguous.
Karthik usually says “I can’t give a blanket ruling” when people try to get him to take their side in disputes with refs over specific matches. He doesn’t say it in response to legitimate questions about the rules in the abstract and it’s a bit unfair to say that he would.
Another thing to bear in mind is that the troughs aren’t held up by all that much, so as well as getting in trouble for pinning there’s a good chance that the pinning robot will also get in trouble for damaging the field.
Good point. I didn’t think about the potential danger to the Trough.
Don’t ram people into it, alright?
Not to comment on the legality of the pinning question, but in regards to trough strength:
I’ve been playing with them for a while now, and I think they turned out pretty tough – It would take a lot of abuse for a VEX robot to damage one. That said, it isn’t a good idea to try. 
-John
Very true. We actually tested this around 20 minutes ago, and we weren’t even scratching it.
My entire thing was about ruling of pining against trough because people can drive underneath it
It’s most definitely illegal. Think of it this way: If a robot traps you into a corner, can they say “It’s your fault for not being able to lift up on sliders, and driver over me”? Obviously not, even though it’s possible to design a robot to do that. Same rule applies here. If on the other hand, the robot is capable of going under the through, that might a different story.
Right. I COULD build a robot that moves by spinning 12" linear slides as legs, like the spider bot design someone posted. That would be difficult to pin. However, it is still pinning to trap designs not capable of the same thing.
That sounded weird. But I think you get my point.
That’s correct. No one misunderstood you. The answer to your question is in the manual, and it was answered twice in the two posts immediately after you asked it.
The posts you were replying to were not intended to answer your question. It had been answered. To paraphrase the manual, inhibiting the movement of an opposing Robot while the opposing Robot is in contact with the trough is illegal. The fact that it is possible to build a robot that can drive under the trough is not mentioned in the rule and is irrelevant.
Please define “open soon”.
Thank you.
May 15th.
https://vexforum.com/showthread.php?p=295045#post295045
Sorry we didn’t do a formal announcement sooner!
What about if a robot has its arm up but it is capable of driving under when its arm is down.
Do you think it would not count as pinning cause they could lower there arm.
Now that is a valid question, and something you should ask on the 15th. Personally, I think that as long as you’re not in contact with them and pinning them against the troughs, it wouldn’t be considered trapping or pinning.
If and only if you left the Robot room to lower its arm, you MAY have a case. However, the ability of a team to do that is so, so low, as you would have to trap the robots in a VERY specific configuration to have them stuck, but not be “pinned”.
The pushing action could prevent the other robot from moving its arm down anyway (stuck between your robot and the trough), and it would be hard to prove that it wasn’t. Basically in my opinion, if you are preventing movement of the other robot, it is pinning (or trapping) and there isn’t any way to get around that using technicalities or exceptions. The rules are fairly clear on this:
Nothing about the specifics on how the pinning is carried out.